1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a host device of a printer, a, and relates more particularly to a host device, a printing system, and a data processing method that can easily extract information from print data.
The disclosure also relates to a host device, a printing system, and a data processing method that can easily extract information from print data without changing the existing application, driver, or printout.
2. Related Art
POS systems, which are a type of sales management system, are commonly used in supermarkets and other retail businesses, and multiple terminal devices (such as electronic cash registers) in the system operate and execute processes as controlled by applications installed on the terminal devices. A printer is also typically connected to each terminal device, and produces receipts, coupons, and other printouts as instructed by the application. Systems that are configured similarly to a POS system and produce other types of printouts are also used in hospitals and package delivery companies.
As technology advances and business needs change after the system is initially deployed, adding new functions becomes necessary. Adding functions for analyzing sales information and producing electronic receipts, for example, is particularly desirable in POS systems.
Such systems are typically central to business operations and are connected to other systems, and changing the applications used in a system is normally not easy.
To solve this problem, JP-A-2014-85741 describes technology enabling processing and supplying data output by the POS terminal to another external device.
Many terminal devices that command printing receipts and other forms in a POS system, for example, use a Windows® driver as the printer driver, and the object to be printed is converted by the printer driver to raster data that is then sent to the printer.
When a Windows driver is used by the POS terminal applying the method described in JP-A-2014-85741, the data processing device that extracts information from the print data must use OCR (optical character recognition) technology, for example, to extract meaning from the rasterized print data (such as text). This creates problems with the accuracy of the information and increases the load on the data processor.
Some problems with information acquisition can be resolved by switching to a mode that sends text data from the POS terminal device to the printer, but this requires using the fonts built into the printer when printing and the appearance of the printout may change.